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Facebook Tests Satire Tag

by Meg Duley,posted Aug 19 2014 4:18AM

If you've ever read an article from The Onion that someone posted to Facebook and mistaken it for real news, you're not alone. Facebook recognizes the issue and is testing out a feature that marks fake news stories with "satire" in its News Feed.

A Facebook representative told Mashable, "We are running a small test which shows the text '[Satire]' in front of links to satirical articles in the related articles unit in News Feed. This is because we received feedback that people wanted a clearer way to distinguish satirical articles from others in these units." The tag is considered especially useful for sites that aren't as well-known as The Onion.

Recently The Daily Currant posted a satirical article about former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin joining Qatar-based Al Jazeera as a commentator, and the Washington Post published it on its website as real news. They paper later posted a correction, but it just shows how satirical articles really can cause confusion.